


In Vino Veritas

by chewysugar



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Drinking, Drunken Kissing, F/M, Forgiveness, Love Triangles, Regret, Surprise Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 01:18:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13020222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewysugar/pseuds/chewysugar
Summary: Jean makes a terrible mistake in a moment of drunkenness. Will Scott be able to forgive her?





	In Vino Veritas

Jean blamed the wine, and she blamed her being alone and in a frazzled state of mind on her needing the wine in the first place.  
  
Two glasses in and she was seeing things in the miracle fog that set in over the mind of all those who indulged in a touch of the creature.

It couldn’t be helped—too much had happened too fast, mostly on the global scale. Having to live in a constant state of shutting the mental doors of everyone in the immediate vicinity lest she go mad, Jean figured she was perfectly entitled to a night of indulgence. Normally she’d indulge a night on the town with Ororo; but ‘Ro had things of her own to deal with that night. And as for the one person Jean really wanted to see, he was likewise indisposed, doing field training with the avalanche of young mutants recruited to Professor Xavier’s cause.  
  
At twenty-one, Jean’s experiences with alcohol weren’t exactly limited; but the vintage she’d chosen was especially potent, and it was doing wonders for the loneliness and mounting stress.  
  
She went to drink more, and found to her immense disappointment, her glass empty.  
  
“Ugh.” Jean stretched her powers, delayed by a fraction of a second at best, and gripped the bottle at the opposite end of hers and Scott’s bedroom. It was empty, and she could scarcely believe it. She hadn’t been drinking that much—only for the better part of an hour while channel surfing.  
  
The buzz was exquisite—a sort of in-between place where she was completely lucid but still too distant from the pent-up stress to touch her. She knew it wouldn’t last long, this feather-light space where everything was much funnier and more meaningful. Soon the sensation would dwindle away, leaving her exposed to all those complicated emotions—to the jagged talons of reality.  
  
_No_ , Jean thought as she got, perfectly steadily, to her feet. _I’m not going to deal with this tonight._  
  
There was too much happening in her life—too many struggles and losses and disappointments. Any other night and she’d have leaned on her friends or on Scott—Scott, her constant rock in all the confusion and chaos.  
  
Now, with the mansion all but empty, Jean had no one but sweet lady Sauvignon to get her through.  
  
The doors opened for her as she hurried with the determination of a Viking warrior through the halls and down the stairs. She wanted nothing more than to project something, anything to Scott or Ororo, or even Alison. But the only other people remotely close to her age and in New York State were out and about; and as Jean crossed the front hall in hurried feet, a reminder of the drought of like-minded adults zoomed passed her in a blur of neon.  
  
Grimacing, Jean whirled around and used a gentle tug of telekinesis to stop the garish vision from colliding with a bust of Empress Justinian.  
  
“Whoa! Thanks Jean. I just about had a close personal encounter with ancient history.”  
  
Jean blinked some of the lucidity back into her eyes as it threatened to escape. “Professor Xavier told you about skating inside, Kitty.”  
  
Kitty rolled her eyes. “There’s, like, barely anyone here. Besides, Prof—  
  
“—essor Xavier is a jerk,” Jean said at the same time as Kitty.  
  
Kitty narrowed her eyes. “I am so not that predictable...am I?”  
  
“You’re twelve years old,” Jean said, wanting nothing more than to be in the kitchen searching for more comforting wine.  
  
“Thirteen,” Kitty amended with the air of one suffering a great slight with regal dignity.  
  
“A teenager. An adolescent. A pubescent bundle of hormones and energy.”  
  
Kitty peered closer at Jean. “Are you, drunk?”  
  
Jean laughed. “Not yet, kitty cat. Now run along. _Run_ , you hear me? The decor here is expensive but you’re priceless and irreplaceable.”  
  
“Tsh,” Kitty said as Jean relinquished her telekinetic grasp in her roller skates. “Thanks...I guess I am pretty klutzy even without the skates. It’s just so boring with nothing to do.”  
  
“Wait ‘til you get my age, Ariel.”  
  
“It’s Sprite now.”  
  
“The Ariel Formerly Known As Sprite.”  
  
Kitty scoffed again and obediently undid her rollerskates. Her teenage pluckiness never far behind any attempt to stifle it, she perked up at once. “Maybe I’ll ghost through Peter’s closet and surprise him when he gets back from the gallery showing!” She all but skipped off; Jean was just tipsy enough to stand with her mouth hanging open for several lingering moments of scandalized shock before she recalled that she was supposed to be making the good impression as the adult in the room.  
  
“Wait, Kitty!” Jean called. “Stop! Come back! He’s too old for you in most parts of America!” Realizing that she was speaking to an empty entrance hall, and that she was also losing precious moments with her wine high, Jean shook her head and walked away.

Jean wasn’t entirely certain that it was appropriate to have someone as young as Kitty Pryde being so innately involved with the X-Men. To study and learn at the school was one thing—but to fight? Scott and the boys had been at least fourteen when they’d started training, and Professor Xavier hadn’t let them have any real field experience until at least sixteen. But now it seemed as if the good professor had forgotten all of that in his need to pursue the integration of mutants, and Jean, if she was being perfectly honest with herself, didn’t agree.

 _No_ , she thought as she reached the spacious, empty kitchen. _Not thinking about this right now, remember, Red?_

Jean directed energy towards the wine cabinet. The varnished door opened, and several dusty bottles shuffled out of the way. A step stool slid from across the kitchen, but collided with the garbage bin half-way. It fell with a clatter that made Jean giggle. She focused her powers once more, carried the step stool across the kitchen, then, remembering herself, let it fall.

Christ, but she was tipsier than she thought. Shaking her head, she focused on her preferred bottle from the cabinet. The cork popped outwards of its own volition and ricocheted across the room.

Sighing, Jean spun around like a supermodel and hopped onto the mosaic tile island. Neglecting the necessity of a wine glass—because who in the world needed those anymore—Jean drank straight from the bottle.

The numbness closed in around her like the world’s most comfortable security blanket. Who cared what was happening in the world outside the mansion tonight? Certainly not Jean. She had spent so long caring—caring because others had wanted her to care—that it had started to weigh on her day after day. And though she wasn’t hurting for the company needed to carry such burdens when they got too heavy, to be vulnerable enough to admit that she had to carry them in the first place was almost unthinkable.

Who was she, but Jean Grey? Mother to the X-Men, practically. She wasn’t supposed to have any kind of troubles—she was the one who was supposed to be there to cleanse the troubles of others.

This—taking one night out for herself—was the least of what she could do if she chose.

So she felt no shame in sucking back her second bottle of wine. The warm, feather-light feeling formed a cocoon around her entire body and mind. She felt like a billion things all at once—celestial, a goddess, a princess, a dancer, and a saint. Any and all possibilities were within her reach in this sphere. Not even tapping into the fullest extent of her powers could make her feel so sublime.

 _Scott_ , she thought, giggling as she did so. _Scotty-boy. Your girlfriend is lonely and drunk as a skunk._

There was no response—of course there wasn’t. Scott was busy tonight, as he should be.

“Busy training the next group of toy soldiers to die for a paraplegic’s cause,” Jean said derisively, to nobody in particular. She was flying so high, through the farthest reaches of the universe itself, and at those horrible words—that unfair attack on someone who had a vision in a world too cruel to let him see it—Jean was sent hurtling down, down, down.

Jean slid from the island, nearly slipping and cracking her head open on the corner of the counter. She needed something to cushion the impact—something to protect her from shattering on the hard, uncaring ground.

More wine. She needed more wine—needed to escape. There was no one here to escape in, nobody but Kitty and a handful of others who’d joined this doomed crew.

Jean stumbled across the floor. Her powers shimmered outwards, billions of tiny hands lifting her off the linoleum. She floated towards the still-open wine cabinet, retrieved a bottle—she didn’t even know which vintage or vineyard it was—and popped the cork with her mind. It bounced off her chest, and Jean’s concentration faltered long enough for her to drop from the air and onto her backside.

She didn’t feel the pain—she only felt the foolishness, and she laughed like she’d never laughed before. Something prickled on the edge of her awareness, and even as she got to her feet, she knew exactly what had caused the sensation.

“I know you’re there, Logan,” Jean said, her words thick but mercifully coherent. “I can hear all the pretty little thoughts you’re thinking about me right now.”

“Then you’d know that I’m a little more than surprised to see you like this, Jeannie.”

Jean shook her head and set the open bottle on the counter. She turned, steady as she could, to face him. He was in a pair of dirt-stained sweats and a muscle shirt. His hair, always a mess, was swept back by wind; and his eyes, burning with the heat of a predator, were trained most disconcertingly on her. 

He’d only been with the team for a short while, and already he’d wrought changes unlike any that Jean, or anyone else, had ever anticipated; and it hadn’t been long enough for anyone, Jean included, to determine whether those particular changes were to anyone’s benefit.

“Surprised?” Jean repeated. “Why? Because I’m a woman?”

Logan shook his head. He swaggered around the island with all the bravado of an Alpha wolf, and leaned against the counter, his eye drinking Jean in as if _she_ were potent drink. “Nothin’ of the kind. I just didn’t take you for a heavy drinker, is all.”

“M’not a lightweight, Logan. Only telepath in a group of rowdy teenage boys, remember? It was always me sneaking into the mind of a liquor store clerk to get some booze without being carded.”

“That’s a little devious,” Logan whistled. “Definitely proving me wrong about all I ever thought you were right now.”

Jean laughed, a little too long and loud, but she was beyond the point of caring. She’d almost forgotten that Logan was here holding down the mansion while the others were all away. 

But, she wondered, would she really have gone to him before the wine had worked its magic? She knew, from the accidental flashes she got into his mind, that he wanted her; and he was nothing if not civil when they were around each other. But there was something about Logan’s whole manner that didn’t exactly invite the image of a shoulder to cry on.

“You’re a little drunk there, darlin’,” Logan said, as if it needed to be spoken aloud.

“So what if I am?” Jean straightened herself to her full height, and then laughed once more.

Where was Scott? Why wasn’t Scott here to stop her from making a complete ass out of herself in front of Logan?

“Jeannie…what’s wrong? You might not be a lightweight but you sure ain’t got this hammered before.”

“Oh really, Mister Knows Everything About Drinking? How do you know that? You’ve only been here all of four months.”

“ ‘Cause,” Logan said softly, “if you were used to it, you wouldn’t be leaning against that counter to stop yourself fallin’ on your pretty little—

“Okay.” Jean raised her arms in supplicant surrender—anything to stop Logan from talking about her in that way. “Alright. You win, smartypants. Goody two-shoes Grey is drinking because she’s sad and alone tonight. All her friends are gone and her man is too. Boo hoo hoo.”

“He’ll be comin’ back later. You know that. I know it’s gotta be rough tonight, but he’s safe as the rest of ‘em are.”

“Wish that could pull me through,” Jean said softly. “I wish it was enough—I was he was enough…he is, actually. More than enough. Everyone looks at him like he’s some kind of damaged automaton, but he’s not. Scott’s warm and loving and so damn courageous...” She lapsed into silence, thinking about him—about how she always felt as if she’d just scored a point against Evil itself whenever she saw Scott smile; about how they’d both grown together through all the adversity they’d faced. 

She felt herself starting to tear up, and, needing something to bring levity, she added, “Plus the sex is just so damn amazing, and he’s so endowed that it’s like a hurricane every time he lands.”

Logan stilled, his eyes going wide. His lips parted in a surprised “O” and Jean laughed, a real, genuine laugh this time.

“Ha! I did it! I shocked Wolverine! Somebody call the Guinness people, I’ve got a record to place.” 

Logan recovered from his shock. “That’s pretty funny, Jeannie.”

“Glad you think I’m entertaining.”

The fog closed in around her with a vengeance. Her vision slid in and out of focus. Logan still stood before her, and unfathomable expression on his face.

A friend.

Yes.

Logan was a friend, and he was here, and he wasn’t bad person—he was just one of those good people who did bad, as were many of the people in Jean’s life.

 _He’s handsome_ , Jean thought, and then immediately wondered why she’d thought such a thing. Logan wasn’t ugly by any stretch of the imagination, but there was something too savage about him, like a bloodthirsty wolf that would turn on anything and anyone under the wrong circumstances. 

Jean shivered, and wrapped her arms around herself.

“Scott…” She said it out loud without meaning to.

“He’ll be comin’ home soon enough,” Logan repeated. “Think you should get yourself into a nice hot shower and into bed before…”

“Before what, Logan?” Jean stared at him. In the midst of her stupor, she was finding it utterly impossible to tell what she felt about anything at all—he, being the nearest thing, was taking center stage, and Jean didn’t like that.

Logan sighed. “Before I start drinking with you.”

Jean laughed. “Sorry for being a bad influence.”

“Think I’m the badder one, Jeannie.”

Jean swallowed. Why did he have to keep calling her that? Why did she have to feel slightly tickled by it? Why was any of this happening? Why was she drunk? Why was she part of this ridiculous war, when all she wanted now was somewhere calm and quiet?

“It’s just…too much right now,” Jean said, her voice small and terrified. When Logan didn’t speak, Jean felt compelled to feel the insinuating silence. “All this pain and loss and…and chaos. It’s not right. It’s not natural. There’s no hope for the future, Logan. No matter what…what he says, we’re all doomed because of what we are…”

“Chaos is natural, Jeannie. The Japanese say that the world was an ocean that only took form after Izanagi and Izanami parted the waters. Way I see it, chaos is the real way of the world.”

So blunt; so pragmatic. Scott wouldn’t have said something so caustic and true—he’d have done everything to build the fantasy of peace in Jean’s mind, the way that Professor Xavier had done to him since childhood. Jean, feeling the weight of Logan’s words sink into her, realized how much she’d come to depend on that from Scott. 

Was she wrong in needing the luxury of the lie?  
  
But it couldn’t be a lie—she wouldn’t let it be a lie.  
  
_He’s lived longer_ , Jean told herself. _Of course he’s angry and jaded..._  
  
“Poor Logan,” she found herself saying.  
  
“Don’t need no pity, Jeannie.” He said it without any conviction whatsoever—Jean rather imagined that Logan probably could tolerate sympathy from her and only her. As if he was the one capable of reading minds, he said, “Ain’t like Cyke. I can scrape by all on my lonesome.”  
  
Jean shook her head. “You shouldn’t have to. Nobody should.”  
  
“Least of all you.”  
  
“I have lots of people, Logan.”  
  
“Too much for one more?”  
  
“No. I guess not.”  
  
Logan sighed. “Guess that’s one of the reasons I didn’t shine so well to Cyke when I first made his acquaintance. Don’t take this the wrong way, Jeannie, but he takes things for granted. Just think you should know that.”  
  
Jean bristled. “Well when I first met you I thought I was going to be annoyed by you because you have a rough, grating, gravel-like voice, and you need to know that about yourself.”  
  
But Logan only laughed. “Temper, temper. ‘Course, you’ve gotta have a temper to keep Cyke in line.”  
  
“Among others.”  
  
“Couldn’t handle me, Jeannie. Too wild for you.” There was a challenging gleam like mischief in his eye, and it made Jean feel completely off-put, as if something had come out of the ether and shoved her into the wall.  
  
He was flirting with her—and part of her was enjoying it.  
  
_I have to get out of here_ , Jean thought. She pushed herself away from the counter and walked with as much steady dignity as she could muster away from him. She felt the fringes of his thoughts brush against her mind—momentary panic that he’d scared her away, and biting self-loathing for being such a gormless beast. Jean stopped and turned to him, her heart beating fast as a hummingbird’s wings.  
  
“Jeannie...” His hand closed around her wrist, his other around her shoulder. The touch should have been rough, painful—the man had a metal skeleton for the love of God. But he was being gentle, careful, and the fact that he could after the tremendous pains he’d suffered broke Jean’s heart.  
  
His eyes pulled her in, even as her rational mind railed against this—screamed at her that this was dangerous and wrong. But her emotional mind made been laid vulnerable by too much stress, and the influence of the wine had picked it clear to the marrow.  
  
Neither of them could rightly say who kissed whom first. The immediate thought that sprung to Jean’s mind when she felt Logan’s lips against hers was: _coarse_. His beard scratched against her; he smelled like earth, sweat and the spice of his preferred cigars. It was raw, masculine and dangerous, so different from Scott.  
  
Too different from Scott.  
  
The thought slammed into Jean like an asteroid. She gasped and backed away, almost tripping over herself. Hatred like she’d never known blossomed through her, hot as cosmic fire, gnawing like toxic poison. But it wasn’t for Logan—it was for herself.  
  
_Heartbreaker._  
  
Traitor.  
  
Whore.  
  
Her eyes filled with tears; her throat constricted any and all attempt to speak or even breathe as she stared blearily at Logan. Something in his gruff face broke. He looked devastated, but devastated for her.  
  
“Jeannie...” He took half a step to her, his voice pained.  
  
That was all it took to get Jean running. She fled from the kitchen, her mind and soul a chaotic whirlwind. Pictures and pieces of statuary along the halls rattled as her powers threatened to go haywire. Lethal recriminations battered against her wine-mulled brain, stinging with the force of bullet-hail. Not even the sanctuary of her bedroom proved a balm; once she was alone and surrounded by evidence of the life she and Scott had only just started building together, Jean’s misery and biting self-loathing only mounted.  
  
_Stupid, drunk, uncontrollable, ridiculous, unfaithful little girl; can’t even go one night drinking wine without kissing another man; little bitch; stupid whore; wasting all you have over someone as pathetic as Logan; he’s going to leave you, leave you and you deserve it..._  
  
Jean covered her ears with her hands and screamed. Glass in the mirrors and pictures frames around the room shattered; light bulbs burst; pillows exploded, sending feathers everywhere; furniture rattled and flew against the walls as Jean’s entire emotional core discharged in a ball of celestial phoenix fire.  
  
She sank to the floor, her body racked with sobs. For a long time she lay there, consumed by poisonous guilt and confliction so deep that it hurt. But soon she began to see through the catastrophic wreckage; soon she found bits and pieces of sense in all the chaos she’d wrought.  
  
And as she began to piece something tarnished together out of the gold she found in that wreckage, she couldn’t help but laugh.  
  
Logan was someone she could run away with, yes. He was all that was wild and untamed and unexplored in this vast, vast universe. He was freedom from the trappings of Jean’s own life—a ticket to ride on a crazy train down the highway to Hell.  
  
But Scott?  
  
Scott was the one who would stand by her as the world fell apart. His were the arms that would hold her while everything came undone; he wasn’t an escape—he was presence, her own personal terra firma. He wouldn’t take her away from anything—he would take them both away, on equal footing.  
  
Only, after tonight, she wasn’t so certain that would be the case any longer. Still, as Jean got shakily to her feet and headed to the shower, she felt a strange sense of pyrrhic peace; she knew where her heart truly lay, and it wasn’t in whatever wilds Logan could take them both to.  
  
She lingered long in the shower, and crawled under the covers clean of skin but still feeling inwardly tainted. The tears came, stinging but silent; and eventually, Jean fell into the embrace of a fitful sleep. What she dreamed she didn’t know, but she was wakened what felt like only minutes later by a soft kiss to her forehead.  
  
Scott was leaning over her—he smiled, and brushed her hair back from her forehead.  
  
“Didn’t mean to wake you up,” he said softly. He was looking at her like the most invaluable treasure ever, and Jean almost couldn’t stand it.  
  
Her head still swimming from her earlier drunkenness, Jean sat up. She couldn’t say anything, but goddamn it if she didn’t want to memorize every last detail of his face. The fear that she could lose him in a matter of moments terrified her, but she wouldn’t look away—she wouldn’t hide her crime from him.  
  
Scott brushed the pad of his thumb over Jean’s temple. “What’s wrong, baby? I heard you screaming my head off all the way from Wisconsin.”

“You came back?” Jean whispered, meaning to say, “You came back because I called you,” but her voice died before she could finish speaking.

Scott crawled onto the bed and sat cross-legged in front of her. His thumb trailed a gentle line from her temple to her chin. “Yeah. It was all disjointed and confusing, but you sounded really upset.” He looked around their bedroom, at the remains of what Jean’s outburst had done. “What happened? You’re not hurt are you?”

He was so damn concerned for her; not because she was weak, but because she was his; because Scott had been the first one out of all the boys at the mansion who’d treated her like an equal and not just a girl; because he’d stood back and waited until she’d finally looked his way one day and seen something besides a friend.

 _I’m not going to cry_ , she told herself. Scott didn’t deserve to see her fall to pieces, not when this ruination hadn’t been his fault. But still her voice was strained as she spoke, and still she couldn’t entirely meet his gaze.

“Something happened last night.” 

“Okay?”

Jean took a deep breath. “I was just really lonely and—and everything just kind of piled up so I opened a bottle of wine.”

Scott chuckled softly. “You do seem a little hungover.”

“I drank so much,” Jean said, her heart starting to break once more. “And I wanted to drink more—it’s so stupid, and I’m so damn stupid, but it just got to be too much, baby.” Jean took another deep breath. “I went down to the kitchen and I started talking to Logan and…and I kissed him. I kissed Logan, Scott.”

The room felt airless; Jean waited in a state of numb limbo—waited for anything whatsoever to happen. She wanted nothing more than to dive into Scott’s mind and see what he was thinking—but she wouldn’t do that, not when she’d already taken years of trust and crushed it into powder. 

“I really messed up,” Jean said, and this time she wasn’t so good at keeping the tears at bay. “I’m so sorry. I just…I couldn’t not tell you.”

The silence stretched onwards, horrible and choking. Then…

“Do you love him?”

“No!” Jean shook her head frantically. “No, baby. It was just pathetic and wrong, and I want to be with you, and—

Scott took her face in both his hands and made her look at him. Obscured as his eyes were by the rose-quartz glasses, Jean felt the heat in his gaze. He smiled, brushing her tears away. “You’re okay, Jean,” he said, kind as a dawning day. He kissed her then, kissed her in a way that completely and utterly demolished all what had happened with Logan. 

Scott crawled under the covers with her. Safe in the arms of the man she loved—the man who truly loved her unconditionally—Jean finally fell asleep. But Scott lay awake well into the early hours of the morning; and when, at last, he grew tired of cutting his thoughts open and dissecting every last bloody bit, he quietly slipped from bed and left the room.

Training the new mutants had been an exercise in patience, and he had, admittedly, not had much of it. But he’d seen in them, not just Professor Xavier’s dream for the future of mutantkind, but the potential to be good, honest people in a world bent on savagery and destruction.

Jean’s tangled projections had frozen him dead, and he’d canceled the remainder of the training mission and flown back as fast as the Blackbird could carry him and his students. He’d expected to find something amiss—but nothing like this.

He didn’t blame Jean, not in the least. He blamed the stray who’d come waltzing into the mansion without invitation.

  
It wasn’t that Scott didn’t understand that Logan had seen horrors—he completely did. But the man walked around as if that gave him some kind of pass for his behavior. Scott didn’t believe in that one bit. Who these days hadn’t seen brutality, especially in the mutant world?  
  
He needed something to do with his pent up frustration, and the Danger Room presented the perfect opportunity. He would have a go-over later, once Jean’s hangover wore off; as for Logan, Scott wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to see the man any time soon. He was furious, oh yes—so much so that his eyes scorched marks in the throw rugs along the downstairs hallway. But he couldn’t afford to lash out.  
  
Fate, however, intervened when Scott stepped into the elevator leading to the refurbished Danger Room. Logan stood there, in sweatpants and a muscle shirt. He stilled when he saw Scott, but said nothing. Given the ripe reek of sweat in the elevator, Scott knew that Logan had likely just come from training; but he didn’t leave when the doors opened, and Scott supposed that Logan was either waiting to be shouted down, or working up the nerve for some kind of apology.  
  
Scott felt like such a child around Logan—not only was Logan built like a brick wall, but he was older—both physically and internally. Professor Xavier had given Scott the role as leader before Logan had come along, and Scott didn’t rightly know how to direct orders to someone who not only dwarfed him in age and experience, but who also didn’t give a flying fuck about rules.  
  
The elevator began its descent into the bowels of the mansion. Scott breathed evenly, trying to sift through his fury and discomfort.  
  
“Cyke—“ Logan began, and it was enough to clinch something in Scott’s mind.  
  
“Whatever happened between the two of you is between the two of you. It was a mistake and it’s also in the past.” Unable to reign in all of his anger, Scott pinned Logan with a fierce glare. “She was drunk out of her mind last night, Logan.”  
  
“I know. I shouldn’t have let it happen. I’m just that kind of a piece of crap.”  
  
“No you’re not, Logan. You’re good people; so is she.”  
  
“So are you.”  
  
“I’m just the boy she chose.”  
  
“And the man she deserves.”  
  
Scott frowned, gauging Logan’s face for some sign that his leg was being pulled. But Logan looked completely serious; and there was something in the intensity of his gaze that made Scott feel as if he’d been shoved off his feet. He knew the man had suffered unimaginable pain, but he’d never truly appreciated it until this moment.

The elevator had long since stopped on the basement floor, but neither of them showed signs of being the first to step through the open doors.  
  
_Get me out of here_ , he thought, not daring to project his thoughts lest he wake Jean. _Get me the hell out of here._  
  
“Gotta make it right, Scott.”  
  
Scott? Logan had never called him anything other than Summers, Slim, Cyke, Four Eyes or Bub before.  
  
Scott swallowed. “Well…just don’t let it happen again. You really don’t have to do anything.”  
  
Logan chuckled, a sound that made Scott think of a roaring wind bending mighty pine trees. “ ‘Course I do. Gotta make things level.”  
  
“And—ah—how do you propose to—um—do that?”  
  
Before Scott could move, Logan gripped him by the chin and kissed him. Scott’s eyes went wide behind his glasses, but he couldn’t move, too stunned by the suddenness of Logan’s lips against his—of the scratch of his beard and the wild, manly scent of him—to do anything but stay stock still.  
  
The kiss lasted just long enough for Scott to start panicking. Then Logan broke away, wiped his lips on the back of his hand, and smirked.  
  
“There we go. Now both you and Jeannie hate me for the same reason.”  
  
“Logan, you—  
  
“What? Been alive a long time, bub. You think I’ve never tried sitting on the other side of the seesaw? Try it some time. Might be surprised.” And with that, he gently but firmly pushed Scott from the elevator.

The doors slid shut on Logan’s wicked grin. Scott stood in the subterranean hallway, feeling oddly, thoroughly helpless.

**Author's Note:**

> So...I kind of want to write more from here, but I'm not really certain as to where to go...any suggestion or requests would be more than welcome.


End file.
